What a vault is
A vault is a self-contained knowledge space: a set of source documents (PDFs, web pages, YouTube videos), all the chat sessions you've had against them, and the citations you've gathered. Each vault has its own Gemini File Search index, so questions in one vault never accidentally cite sources from another.
How many vaults you can have
| Plan | Active vaults |
|---|---|
| Free | 1 |
| Pro | 5 |
Archived vaults don't count against the limit. So if you're researching two topics and want them separate on Free, archive one before creating the other.
Creating a new vault
From /vaults, click New vault. Give it a name (you can rename later) and an optional description. The description is passed to the model as extra system context, so a 1-2 sentence framing like "Longevity-focused peptides research, 2020 onward" can sharpen answers.
Archiving vs deleting
- Archive hides the vault from the main list and frees up your vault quota. Sources stay in Storage; the File Search index stays. Restore anytime.
- Delete is permanent. Sources, chat history, File Search store, and ScholarFlow topic subscriptions tied to the vault are all removed. We don't undo deletes.
Vault settings that change behavior
- Description — affects how the model frames answers (system instruction context).
- Public vault — only the seeded demo vault uses this; user-created vaults are always private. Anonymous demo users can read your vault if it's flagged public.
Per-vault limits to watch
Sources quota (100 Free / 2000 Pro) is per-account, not per-vault — so if you create the maximum vaults, divide your sources across them. See quotas & limits.